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Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.
I can see that many of you are having difficulty staying on subject. Instead of employing thoughtful responses, many resort to tweet replies that have nothing to do with the subject;
Just discovered this video, a rather thorough (for 60 minutes) review of the artificial intelligence scene in 1992. They even show a self-driving car (truck) that anticipates google's. They make a lot of good points that we are still wrestling with 20 years later.
They mention the Turning Test but not the Chinese Room. I had a question about the Turning Test.
Speaking of which, if a computer were developed that could perform perfectly on the Turing Test, would it necessarily have to have the internal subjective experience of being conscious like we have?
Speaking of which, if a computer were developed that could perform perfectly on the Turing Test, would it necessarily have to have the internal subjective experience of being conscious like we have?
If performing perfectly on the Turing Test means being perfectly indistinguishable from a human in all conversation, I'm inclined to say 'yes', although it's not clear exactly what criteria would be sufficient to meet those requirements beyond reasonable doubt.
To follow up on my posts about DMT and altered states I can recommend this video. Give the basic and also give the best visuals comparable to a DMT trip I have seen. Audio by Mckenna.
I was playing with 50mg DMT and talking with these weird entities in my room for the first time ever, then a minute after it's subsided the audio literally desribes exactly what happened.
Not only does this have implications for suggesting DMT trips are not purely created internally by the person (your mind is pretty much left unaffected, thought process wise) but that there experiences are to some degree from sources outside the mind. There is no reason for two totally separate people with divergent life experiences should have an exact same trip as someone else. A true hallucination is to be in the presence of that which has never been experienced nor could have possibly been imagined before.
And if it could previously not be imagined, then there is no grounds for believing that you generated it out of yourself.
When you're hallucinating like this, you have an absolutely clear proof that you are not generating this material.
You know what's in your fridge. Or in your cupboards. Then you should know whats in your mind, so if something comes forward and you say, "That's not mine, That's not in my inventory," then you have a kind of perfect proof that this is coming from somewhere else. Then the question becomes, where?
To follow up on my posts about DMT and altered states I can recommend this video. Give the basic and also give the best visuals comparable to a DMT trip I have seen. Audio by Mckenna.
I was playing with 50mg DMT and talking with these weird entities in my room for the first time ever, then a minute after it's subsided the audio literally desribes exactly what happened.
Not only does this have implications for suggesting DMT trips are not purely created internally by the person (your mind is pretty much left unaffected, thought process wise) but that there experiences are to some degree from sources outside the mind. There is no reason for two totally separate people with divergent life experiences should have an exact same trip as someone else. A true hallucination is to be in the presence of that which has never been experienced nor could have possibly been imagined before.
And if it could previously not be imagined, then there is no grounds for believing that you generated it out of yourself.
When you're hallucinating like this, you have an absolutely clear proof that you are not generating this material.
You know what's in your fridge. Or in your cupboards. Then you should know whats in your mind, so if something comes forward and you say, "That's not mine, That's not in my inventory," then you have a kind of perfect proof that this is coming from somewhere else. Then the question becomes, where?
Well this is going to get me in a host if trouble, as essentially these are highly 'far out' ideas.
We are communicating with alien species who are thrilled to see us join their psychotropic reality, and they often give us a message.
We are in contact with the dear departed, in a realm that you could call eternity, their glee in seeing us in their realm is support for this.
We are experiencing messages from plants (DMT is ubiquitous throughout nature), a kind of transdimensional communication only possible by using their most abundant tryptamine.
DMT is the work of Satan, and anyone that uses this natural medicine shall burn in hell forever.
You are not getting my point. Sure, 50g of DMT is enough to send people into wonder. I am pointing out that my experience was unique (a hyperdimensioanl case) in which there were entities, that looked like fractal beings, always morphing always shifting. One jumped into my chest, and I said out loud "you scared the hell out of me!" at which point all the entities started laughing.
They were speaking to me but not in language, but in images. They were adamant that I could do the same ,,, and with time I was speaking in pictures, to much applause from the entities.
I put this down to a strange powerful trip at first, until I later watched a video by Mckenna that EXACTLY described what occurred to me (entities in your chest, their joy with your communication, visual language)
Not only does this have implications for suggesting DMT trips are not purely created internally by the person (your mind is pretty much left unaffected, thought process wise) but that there experiences are to some degree from sources outside the mind.
There is no reason for two totally separate people with divergent life experiences should have an exact same trip as someone else. A true hallucination is to be in the presence of that which has never been experienced nor could have possibly been imagined before.
Well this is going to get me in a host if trouble, as essentially these are highly 'far out' ideas.
We are communicating with alien species who are thrilled to see us join their psychotropic reality, and they often give us a message.
We are in contact with the dear departed, in a realm that you could call eternity, their glee in seeing us in their realm is support for this.
We are experiencing messages from plants (DMT is ubiquitous throughout nature), a kind of transdimensional communication only possible by using their most abundant tryptamine.
DMT is the work of Satan, and anyone that uses this natural medicine shall burn in hell forever.
You are not getting my point. Sure, 50g of DMT is enough to send people into wonder. I am pointing out that my experience was unique (a hyperdimensioanl case) in which there were entities, that looked like fractal beings, always morphing always shifting. One jumped into my chest, and I said out loud "you scared the hell out of me!" at which point all the entities started laughing.
And what ability do we currently posses to explicitly / definitively adjudicate the conditions of subjective reality to determine its phenomenological veracity?
…absolutely none (except our own)!
IOW…when it comes to determining what is…or is not ‘real’…we ultimately have no idea (it’s a hallucination…meaning…what ?????????????????) and currently no way of having any idea except by our own subjective experience of it. Given that subjective experience is the only reality that we can say with any certainty actually does exist (meaning it is singularly qualified to adjudicate its own condition)…and given our massive ignorance of its evolution, occurrence, and conditions…it is scientifically juvenile to presume understanding.
Even assuming you could prove (you can't) that the elements of your experience were not primed by descriptions of similar experiences (even McKenna's) that you don't consciously remember, there's no reason why two or more people taking the same drug shouldn't have similar hallucinatory experiences. In particular, the trope of strange entities in the room and an entity jumping onto your chest has similarities to common hypnagogic/hypnopompic sleep paralysis experiences. The perceptual distortions, shape morphing, and hyper-communicative significance of images and symbols are also not uncommon in drug experiences (and also schizoid episodes).
I was thinking of this external experience vs internal experience issue and discovered an illustrative example -- smell.
Externally, there is no such thing as a good smell, or a bad smell. Externally, smells are just chemical compounds in the air. No good or bad exists in the compounds.
However...
When the smell signals hit the right parts of our brain, they are categorized as good or bad. We interpret this as a "subjective experience" but we evolved from creatures that simply avoided bad smells (infectious agents, poisons, etc.) and pursued good smells (food, mates, etc.). This "subjective experience" is the evaluation of smell categorization rising up from our primitive brain areas to our modern cognitive areas. As real as this seems from the inside, it's all just data flying around our brains and being filed away that produces this, and the illusion of consciousness. I think this is what people are using the word "hallucination" to describe, e.g., a limb is the reality, the phantom limb that exists when the real limb is removed (and was just the internal rep. of the real limb when present) is what some people here misuse the word "hallucination" for: the representations of the world in the brain. It appears vivid and acquires a kind of cosmic majesty because it's being observed from inside itself.
I do not think there is some property of the universe that is the basis of consciousness, Consciousness is a result of random mutation and natural selection of the data processing power of neurons. Its characteristics are arbitrary, not universal, because it was assembled with pieces that just happened to help pass on the genes that formed them. We think our form of consciousness is universal because its the only form we really know. The alien consciousness of something like a cuttlefish is unimaginable to us. It's brain is donut-shaped, though it's been shown to be really smart. I doubt its internal subjective experience is much like ours.
No. I elevated the amount of a natural neuro-transmitter by 80x and experienced something that was exactly the same as other people later described to me.
This was not sitting in a room and seeing pretty pictures and having funny ideas. This was reality dissolving completely and utterly, and being replaced by something quite different.
A troop of elves from hyperspace smashed in my door and started speaking to me in visual language, kind of glossolalia to hear but beautiful to watch. They were overjoyed when I spoke to them, as to be honest I was freaking out a bit until they started laughing.
If I master how to speak to them coherently in their complex language then I may be able to convince an elf to come back me with me next time. If so I'll set him up an account here to explain everything for you. Or video him as proof.
and what ability do we currently posses to explicitly / definitively adjudicate the conditions of subjective reality to determine its phenomenological veracity?
No. I elevated the amount of a natural neuro-transmitter by 80x and experienced something that was exactly the same as other people later described to me.
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